Differentiation Strategy: Varsity Practice

Hi there!

In today's video for Vlogoween, I talk about how getting rid of honors classes, while it comes with more work around differentiation and lesson planning, has been incredible in making our district's math education more equitable.

The problems I mentioned are below--they're all compiled from other online sources and I only created the systems of equations problems at the end!

As always, I would love to hear about how this goes in your classroom if you use it. And if you make it better, please let me know how so that I can grow too! No one is as smart as all of us together!


FIND ME HERE: BLOG: http://grishmapolitan.blogspot.com/ TUMBLR: http://grishma.tumblr.com/ INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/grishmapolitan TWITTER: http://twitter.com/grishmapolitan

YOUTUBE: http://youtube.com/user/grishmapolitan

Geometry Project: Stained Glass Constructions and Art History

Hi there!

I get so excited any time an educator contacts me asking about something that piqued their interest about my classroom--whether you're from a different city, state, or country, thank you for reaching out! I'm sorry I'm not able to respond to every email I get, so I'm hoping to be more intentional about this year's Vlogoween and use it as an opportunity to share the documents and rubrics you might find helpful as I talk through different systems and activities in my classroom!

Today, I'm going to share a project that is inspired by an idea from two of my former students--using patty paper/tracing paper to make stained glass while we practice geometric constructions! I talk through the project and share student examples on today's video:

And the documents I made are below:



As always, I would love to hear about how this goes in your classroom if you use it. And if you make it better, please let me know how so that I can grow too! No one is as smart as all of us together!


FIND ME HERE: BLOG: http://grishmapolitan.blogspot.com/ TUMBLR: http://grishma.tumblr.com/ INSTAGRAM: http://instagram.com/grishmapolitan TWITTER: http://twitter.com/grishmapolitan
YOUTUBE: http://youtube.com/user/grishmapolitan

Choosing a Color Scheme

When I was "auditioning" for schools as a kindergartener, there was a school I didn't get into because I couldn't name my colors. (If you ask my parents, it was because I didn't say a word during the entire interview-quiz. Maybe the nuns scared me.) I did, eventually, learn my colors and became very confident in my ability to name them.

Until now.

In trying to create a color scheme for my space, I've learned that the hardest part isn't figuring out what colors I should add, it's figuring out what colors are already there. Take, for example, my couch. What color is it? I don't know. I mean, it's brown. But I can't point it out on a color wheel. And if I don't know where it is on the color wheel, how can I know what's directly across from it? Or the two colors equidistant from it?

I want to figure this out because I'm not starting from scratch. I'm not going to buy a new sofa. I'm not going to buy a new dining table. I could buy new sheets, but I probably won't. I have to consciously think about color moving forward, and I want to be precise.

If you can eyeball your stuff and estimate the right color, more power to you. But if you're a perfectionist and need a precise palette, here's a way to do it:

Step 1: Take a photo of the largest "thing" in your room. I'm going to make a color scheme for my living room, and everything is going to be centered around my sofa.

Step 2: Upload the photo here. This website will tell you the specific RGB/hex # of any image you upload. (There're apps on your phone that can do this, too, but I haven't found one that'll give you the hex #) Here's my couch-swatch:

Step 3: Copy the Hex # and paste it here. It'll give you all the popular color schemes--and if you hover over the other colors, you can find their info as well.

For my living room, I came up with this palette:

And now, the actually difficult part. Finding things in these colors...